Dr Angel, Medicine Woman
by eswigag
Summary: "She willed her tear ducts to stay dry. God, the one part of her eyes that still worked…" Set S4, after "Heaven and Hell".


**Warnings for:** language.

* * *

"So you'll… what, touch my forehead and bam, I can see again?" Pamela asked. She took a drink from her beer to quench the sudden dryness in her throat. She didn't hear her voice almost break. She didn't see the angel and demon exchanging looks. To Pamela, all that mattered was that she'd have her eyes back. She willed her tear ducts to stay dry. God, the one part of her eyes that still worked…

"Pretty much like that, yeah," Anna's voice said about two feet in front of her.

Pam frowned. "You sound nervous. You're _sure_ that this'll work, right? This isn't your first time or anything? You're the angel, I get it, but I've dabbled in these things myself and I know it's not a science."

"I know. And you're right. It's a little tricky." Anna paused, maybe searching for the words.

"Tricky how? Can it be done or not?" Pamela asked. She felt a little bad for sounding so harsh with the girl after everything else that'd happened to her, especially when she was just trying to help, but give her a break, she'd had her eyes burned out by one of Anna's ex-lackeys and suddenly Anna had shown up at her doorstep unannounced, an angel again but with that demon still in tow, saying _maybe_.

"It's like this," Anna started, talking slowly, gently. "Angels have… we have two main sources of power. The grace of God, and the connection we have to other angels in Heaven. When we pray for strength, other angels hear it and they lend their power. I have my grace back. I can do some things I couldn't do without it. But-"

"But?"

"My grace… What I did, I wasn't supposed to do. By rules or by design. I ripped a part of me out and threw it away and watched it fall to Earth. My grace is damaged. It spent years bleeding before I took it back, and now I don't even know if taking it back was such a smart idea. It feels… different."

Pamela's lips felt numb. Her whole face, her whole _everything_ felt eerily numb. "So that means… what?"

"It means I'll try my best to help you," Anna whispered. "If I can't do it myself, I can try asking for help from the others."

Pamela jerked in her seat, "No fucking way," she was saying, the same time the demon Ruby broke in, saying, "Are you _kidding_ me, we just got away from them!"

"Guys, come on," Anna said. "I'm not going to ask for help from the ones who we know aren't gonna help. I know some who'd be willing to help, if they could sneak it under Heaven's radar." She hesitated. "And maybe we wouldn't even need to worry about that. There's some other angels like me, who aren't on the Big Guy's frequency anymore. I think they'd have the juice to swing it."

Sounded good to Pamela, but Ruby scoffed. "Okay. Well." Pamela heard her getting up from her leather recliner. "I'm out. I told you I wasn't going to hang around and risk getting my ass dusted by one of your pals. _Again_."

"It's okay, I wouldn't ask you to," Anna assured the demon. Pamela still didn't get why she was still so attached to her - from what she knew of angels, she'd've assumed that Anna would turn on Ruby and smite her the second she turned angel again. "I'll come find you."

"You'd better," Ruby said with a sigh. "Good luck. Don't die." And with that, Pamela sensed the dark shadow in the room vanish, melting away to the floor and gone, fast as a snake in the sun. She felt a little easier with Ruby gone. The Winchesters let her hang around and Anna was road-buddies with her so Pam would keep quiet about her opinions, but demons tended to give her a bad headache and a sick stomach. Not good vibes.

"Okay, now that the demon's away, the girls will play, huh?" Pamela asked, trying to lighten up the mood. It worked; she heard Anna's quiet laugh. "Okay, you ready?"

"Sure," Anna answered, getting up from the - the loveseat, Pamela guessed, the one with the flowers on it. Good thing Anna didn't notice the stains from when Pam got a little bit drunk and yucked on it. At least she didn't mention it.

Glossing over that whole train of thought, Pamela drained the last of her beer and set it down as the girl approached. Pamela put her hands on the chair-arms, ready to get up herself and get this started. She had all the liquid courage she could handle. It was now or never.

"You can keep sitting down if you want," Anna offered. "It might be better that way, actually."

Pamela shrugged and leaned back. "Whatever you say. You're the expert."

Anna's footsteps stopped just in front of her. She sensed a shift in the air as the angel knelt down before her, her hands resting so soft, so light on Pamela's knees. Pamela inhaled. Exhaled. For once, she was glad of the shades over her eyes.

"Ready?" Anna asked quietly.

"Sure am, kiddo," Pamela answered with a grin. A hand disappeared from her knee and fingers brushed the hair out of her face with care before they pressed against her forehead, soft as a whisper.

She didn't _feel_ anything. She _sensed_ energy pouring into her head, pooling in her eyes, flowing from Anna's fingertips. She expected it to hurt. Had braced herself for it.

But there was nothing, as Anna's fingers disappeared from her forehead.

Nothing but blackness.

Disappointment flooded her. Pamela swallowed the huge knot in her throat to ask, "Did it… not work? Should we try calling to the other angels for help and trying again?"

Anna's fingers reappeared. This time on her sunglasses, pinching delicately around the arms as she lifted them off. Pamela sucked in a huge breath of astonishment as color and shape returned to her world, dropping back into place like they'd never left, and a face appeared in front of her, a human face, a face with tired eyes that was nonetheless grinning ear to ear.

Overwhelmed, Pamela screamed in raucous, wordless happiness and threw herself forward, wrapping Anna in a hug tight enough to make a grown man cry and picking her up, spinning with her around the room. Her room, full of color and light and things she could see, spinning around her as she took it all in, tears openly running down her face as Anna hugged her back.


End file.
